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A Dancer's Heart
"My name is Delancey Pirouette Dancer. I am the daughter of the Fourth Dancing Princess, Deirdre Dancer. A lot of times when I tell people that, they go: "Oh you must have the perfect life, I'm so ''envious!" ''Well my life isn't one anyone should envy. I shouldn't even be telling you this. I've been taught that matters of the heart are private things, never spoken about in polite company. But you know what? I don't care. Now I'm going to pour out my whole heart to you, and hope that you understand. Deirdre Dancer You would be surprised at how may times I've been asked to share my earliest memory of Mother. You would probably be even more surprised what answer I always give. A fight. My earliest memory of my mother is a fight. I was six at the time, and had been sent to bed early. But before I feel asleep, the yelling began. I crept downstairs, holding on to Mr. Nutkin, my stuffed squirrel, and bravely facing the source of the loud noise. But it was my mother and my father. My mother was the one doing the yelling, her normally deep and calm voice becoming shrill and hoarse. My father always argued in a different way, he got quieter, even quieter than he usually was. I knew I should have gone to bed, ignored this fight, but I couldn't. I watched them, worry gripping my heart because up until that point my parents had seemed like the perfect married couple who always agreed on everything. "I am her mother! I know what's best for her to do! She;s destined to be a dancer, dancing should be her life as it is mine!" I grew even more upset, realizing that they were fighting about me. "Delancey wasn't born to dance her heart out like you were Deirdre." My father spoke in a dangerously calm voice. "When she is overwhelmed by her emotions, the only suitable outlet is the piano. Dancing just makes her more upset, because she feels pressured to get everything exactly right for you." "As she should! A Dancer is always perfect at whatever they try to do. You know that Louis. I know everything that she needs, and the piano is not one of them!" My mother said with finality. My mother prided herself on the fact that she was a great mother, that her daughter would never need anyone else for guidance or instruction, not even her father. But Father knew me way better than she did, and even now he understands me more that she does. I never let on that I had seen that fight. Or the many, many others that occurred as the years past. The thing was, these fights are always about the same thing. Whether I was born to be a dancer, or born to be a piano player. Louis Charming From what I've said previously, I suppose you can pretty much guess that I am much closer to my father than I am to my mother. My father Louis, was the piano player for my mother's dance class when she was in high school. With that kind of genetics, is it really that surprising that I love to play it? My earliest memory of Father is a pretty vague one. I think I was about four in it. I sat on his lap as he played the piano, and my tiny little hands were placed over his. I remember looking up at him with a big smile, and him smiling down gently at me. Father taught me how to play the piano. He always tells me from the moment I was born he knew that I would be a piano player, I would stop crying when he played the piano music, and he says my slim, long fingered hands are perfect to play the piano. My most recent memory, the last time I saw my father before going out to school, was the night before we left. Father had placed his hand on my shoulder and spoke to my mother. "She has a muscian's heart and soul, you can't keep her from the piano, it will drive her insane." He said. He was right in a way, whenever something happened and I was upset, I ran to the piano. It was my outlet, I didn't know what I would do should Mother keep me from it. Mother didn't yell. Not this time. She meant my gray eyes with her own, as if she was studying me. "She can't ignore dancing forever, and you know that Louis." She said in a still voice, her eyes never leaving my own. "She doesn't ignore it now Deirdre. She practices, just not as much as you would like her to." Father tightened his grip on my shoulder. "Alright. Delancey. How about this? You can play the piano as much as you like for the first part of high school. Then, when it's time to get serious, you are to hang up your sheet music, and take down your dancing shoes, understood?" My mother made a sort of "take it or leave it" deal. I took a deep breath and nodded furiously. Mother sashayed away back to the dancing studio, and Father turned me to face him. "Well done my Del-Del. She'll come around." He promised. She hasn't yet. Mother still thinks I'm going to discover that I want to dance more than I want to play. Which will probably never happen. Father will help me deal with her when the time comes. Anxiety I know, I know, you're probably shocked to find out that I have anxiety. But I do. And not the stupid: "Oh I can't do that, stuff like that makes me ''so ''anxious" fake stuff that I've heard some people, (I won't name names) use to get out of doing things that they don't want to do. Here's the deal. Anxiety is a real thing. And people who have it, well, they don't usually brag about it. At least, not in my personal experience. I'm lucky in some ways. My anxiety tends to just make me restless, dizzy,and nervous. I've had difficulty breathing, and my heart's always pounded like crazy, but I never had any ''really ''bad attacks. Until I did. It was before a recital when it happened. A dance recital. I was eleven, or maybe twelve I don;t remember exactly. Mother had talked them into giving me my own dressing room so I was alone. After I got ready, I moved the curtain and looked out the window. I froze when I saw all the people entering. I started to get nervous, but I bit my lip and stubbornly continued to watch. I saw my mother and father. They were close enough I could hear it when my mother said: "She'd better not embarrass me, If she doesn't do this perfectly it will disgrace us!" After my mother had said that, a couple of my aunts walked up to her. "My daughter will never mess this up in a million years! She knows she has to be perfect, and she is!" One of them said. "I sure hope that your daughter knows what she's doing. One bad dancer can ruin the entire recital!" The other said. I backed away from the window. I could feel my heart start to race. My chest felt tight, it was hard for me to breath. The room started to sway around me, so I collapsed to the ground, scrunching my eyes shut. The words of my mother and my two aunts played over and over in my head. I am unsure of how much time passed before someone came to get me. It was Justine. My cousin and closest friend. She opened the door and gasped when she saw me. I was crying at that point, and she told me later that my skin was several shades lighter. I had scared her. She took my hands in hers and whispered words of comfort to me, stroking my hair. I finally stopped, looking up at her with tear stained eyes. "What was that?!" She demanded, upset. I took a deep breath, and looked down at the ground. I explained about my anxiety problem, unsure of how she would react. She gave me a tight hug. "You need to tell someone." She instructed. I started to panic again. "N-no! it's, it's n-n-never b-been that b-bad before." I tried to reassure her. "You need help Del! No one should have to go through all of this! What, do your parents even know?!" Justine was frustrated with me, I could tell. "They d-don't. B-b-but, please d-d-don't tell anyone." I begged, holding on tightly to her shoulders. She looked conflicted. I could tell she thought that telling other people was the best thing for me, but she also didn't want me to have another attack, so finally she conceded. Since then, I've had a few bad attacks, and Justine always helps me through it. She's still mad because she's still the only one that knows about it. Wait, I guess now you do too. That should make her happy I guess. The Eleven Other Dancing Princesses I have eleven aunts. Eleven. And they aren't like substitute mothers to me or anything, which I'm sure is what most people believe I get when I mention the fact that I have so many. My aunts spoil me. When I was little, I was showered with pretty velvet dresses, shiny jewelry, everything far too grand for a child of any age, and it definately was far to grand and extravagant for a child of five, which is when the spoiling started. This happened for a couple years, then when I was seven, I got to see a different side of my aunts. I was wearing a dark purple velvet gown, with a big black bow in the back. The oldest dancing princess had bought the dress for me, while the others had bought me jewelry. But even as a child I didn't like flashy things, so I rarely wore any of it. The moment my parents had left the room and were out of earshot, one of my aunts looked down at me, not with a loving smile on her face, but with a disdainful sniff. "You look like a homeless street orphan! Not even the finest dress can change that about you! I mean just look at your hair!" She gave me a shove. I stumbled backwards, tears filling my eyes. "Now don't you start crying Delancey! A Dancer never lets others see when people get to them!" Another aunt scolded me. As if the two had set of a chain reaction, the rest of the aunts started in on me. They said that piano playing was a common vulgar habit that I needed to lose, that I needed to spend more time caring about my appearance, I don't even remember what else. They still do that quite a bit, both spoil me and judge me. I'm not sure what they really think of me, or why they do that, but here's my theory. I believe that they spoil me to avoid having Mother's wrath upon them, and they judge me when she's gone. I don't know why they're so critical of me, and I don't know what i did wrong that made them hate me so. Maybe I didn't do a thing wrong, maybe that's just how they are. I don't really know. Do you have a theory my friend? In Conclusion There's many, many other things on my mind. I could tell you about everyone of my cousins and how they treat me, or how the teachers usually act with me, but frankly, that would take more time than I have to spare and I'm sure your done listening to me vent. I have not told anyone any of this, how a lot of things make me hate my life, but then there's a couple things like my father or playing the piano that makes me feel actually happy, but it feels good to get all of this off my chest. Now if only someone would actually read this." Delancey Pirouette Dancer, daughter of the Fourth Dancing Princess Deirdre Dancer and her Prince, Louis Charming, stood at the edge of the courtyard, a white paper flapping in her hands. She took a deep breath, and let go, watching her thoughts and feelings flutter away in the wind.Category:Original Character Fanfiction Category:Cerisefan03's Fanfiction